V. I. Lenin

Letter To D. I. Kursky

Written:17 May 1922First Published:1924; Published according to the manuscriptSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 33, pages 358-359Translated:David Skvirsky and George HannaTranscription\HTML Markup:David Walters&R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

May 17, 1922

Comrade Kursky,

Further to our conversation, I herewith enclose the
      draft of an article supplementary to the Criminal Code.[1]It is a rough draft and, of course, needs altering and polishing up. The
      main idea will be clear, I hope, in spite of the faulty drafting-to put
      forward publicly a thesis that is correct in principle and politically
      (not only strictly juridical), which explains thesubstanceof
      terror, its necessity and limits, and providesjustificationfor
      it.

The courts must not ban terror—to promise that would be deception
      or self-deception—but must formulate the motives underlying it,
      legalise it as a principle, plainly, without any make-believe or
      embellishment. It must be formulated in the broadest possible manner, for
      only revolutionary law and revolutionary conscience can more or less widely
      determine the limits within which it should be applied.

With communist greetings,

Propaganda or agitation, or membership of, or assistance
      given to organisations the object of which (propaganda and agitation) is to
      assist that section of the international bourgeoisie which refuses to
      recognise the rights of the communist system of ownership that is
      superseding capitalism, and is striving to overthrow that system by
      violence, either by means of foreign intervention or blockade, or by
      espionage, financing the press, and similar means, is an offence punishable
      by death, which, if mitigating circumstances are proved. may be commuted to
      deprivation of liberty, or deportation.

a) Propaganda or agitation that objectively serves (variant 2b) the
      interests of that section of the international bourgeoisie which, etc., to
      the end.

b) Persons convicted of belonging to, or assisting, such organisations, or
      persons who conduct activities of the aforesaid character (whose
      activities bear the aforesaid character), shall be liable to the same
      penalty.

Variant 2b:servesor is likelyto serve.

[1]The revised
      draft Criminal Code, in which Lenin’s recommendations were used for
      Articles 57, 58, 61 and 70, was examined and endorsed by the Third Session
      of the Ninth All-Russia Central Executive Committee (May 12-26, 1922).